I have resided at the top of Wadleigh Hill in North Sutton for more than 35 years. Our home faces the southwest, and we look out over miles of the Sunapee hills. We cherish the view. We cherish the natural beauty of New Hampshire.
It is with dismay that the front pages of the Monitor and the Valley News announced the decision of the Department of Resources and Economic Development to approve the Mueller family request to further expand their enterprise on Mount Sunapee. I disapprove of this expansion.
When the first expansion of trails and snow-making was requested and then granted, it had been pointed out that the additional demand on the lake for snow-making would be of minimal concern since the trails were within the Lake Sunapee watershed. The so-called west bowl expansion is not in the Lake Sunapee watershed. Not one drop of the additional millions of gallons of water will ever see the lake again. It will go down Gunnerson Brook and into the Sugar River. The water will be siphoned out of the lake to the other side of the mountain, and not one drop of it will return. This, of course, was not pointed out in the new request for further expansion.
The west bowl is sunny, with lots of solar gain in the afternoon, especially in the late winter. It will need huge amounts of Lake Sunapee water to maintain. That is common sense. This was also pointed out to me by a retired state parks employee who spent decades on the mountain. We have had an open winter. We have had a mild winter. Good science tells us these may be harbingers of things to come. To dismiss the impact of removing millions more gallons out of the lake as miniscule for the sake of entertainment is not good stewardship.
Although the Mueller family project on Mount Sunapee has been promoted as an economic engine for the area and a boon to business, when one travels on Route 103 near the Sunapee circle these days, one sees at least three restaurants closed and ample commercial property unused and for sale. One might ask the store owners in New London just how many pairs of slalom skis have been sold in the last several years. One might ask the Hubert family (prominent clothiers in the area) if Sunapee expansion has been a great boon to sales. One might ask the many people employed by the Muellers on the mountain how well they are paid and what their 401(k)s look like. The expansion of activities on the mountain has not brought sizeable economic prosperity to the region.
On a more personal and emotional level, I would like to share some observations. In my lifetime of almost 76 years, changes have come to New Hampshire. I may well be a refugee from “progress.” I remember spending half a summer at my uncle’s camp on Bear Island when I was 12. I don’t go to Winnipesaukee these days. I have seen the Old Man disappear. I’ve seen the summits of several mountains sold off to cell phone companies so they could put up steel towers 15 stories tall. I’ve seen the proposed installation of huge towers to transmit electricity through the state, through scenic New Hampshire, through the White Mountain National Forest.
Now, locally, I have seen Mount Sunapee leased off for a pittance, and possibly forever, to people in the private sector who are turning the state into an amusement park, indeed a carnival of amusements. Those in power who make the decisions affecting the natural beauty of New Hampshire might reflect on what stewardship means to them. There has been a profound failure to nurture on their watch in my lifetime, a profound corruption of their responsibilities. Will someone come along with the courage and character to say “no” to further expansion?
There are people who miss John Lynch.
John Jones is a resident of North Sutton, NH.